came out of her father's house, and went up the steep slope of Dun-I.
The crying of the ewes and lambs at the pastures came plaintively
against the dawn. The lowing of the kye arose from the sandy hollows by
the shore, or from the meadows on the lower slopes. Through the whole
island went a rapid, trickling sound, most sweet to hear: the myriad
voices of twittering birds, from the dotterel in the seaweed, to the
larks climbing the blue slopes of heaven.
This was the festival of her birth, and she was clad in white. About her
waist was a girdle of the sacred rowan, the feathery green leaves
flickering dusky shadows upon her robe as she moved. The light upon her
yellow hair was as when morning wakes, laughing in wind amid the tall
corn. As she went she sang to herself, softly as the crooning of a dove.
If any had been there to hear he would have been abashed, for the words
were not in Erse, and the eyes of the beautiful girl were as those of
one in a vision.
When, at last, a brief while before sunrise, she reached the summit of
the Scuir, that is so small a hill and yet seems so big in Iona, where
it is the sole peak, she found three young druids there, ready to tend
the sacred fire the moment the sunrays should kindle it. Each was clad
in a white robe, with fillets of oak leaves; and each had a golden
armlet. They made a quiet obeisance as she approached. One stepped
forward, with a flush in his face because of her beauty, that was as a
sea-wave for grace and a flower for purity, as sunlight for joy and
moonlight for peace.
"Thou mayst draw near if thou wilt, Bride, daughter of Duvach," he said,
with something of reverence as well as of grave courtesy in his voice;
"for the holy Cathal hath said that the breath of the Source of All is
upon thee. It is not lawful for women to be here at this moment, but
thou hast the law shining upon thy face and in thine eyes. Hast thou
come to pray?"
But at that moment a cry came from one of his companions. He turned, and
rejoined his fellows. Then all three sank upon their knees, and with
outstretched arms hailed the rising of God.
As the sun rose, a solemn chant swelled from their lips, ascending as
incense through the silent air. The glory of the new day came
soundlessly. Peace was in the blue heaven, on the blue-green sea, and on
the green land. There was no wind, even where the currents of the deep
moved in shadowy purple. The sea itself was silent, making no more than
a sighing slumber-breath round the white sands of the isle, or a dull
whisper where the tide lifted the long weed that clung to the rocks.
In what strange, mysterious way, Bride did not see; but as the three
druids held their hands before the sacred fire there was a faint
crackling, then three thin spirals of blue smoke rose, and soon dusky
red and wan yellow tongues of flame moved to and fro. The sacrifice of
God was made. Out of the immeasurable heaven He had come, in His golden
chariot. Now, in the wonder and mystery of His love, He was re-born upon
the world, re-born a little fugitive flame upon a low hill in a remote
isle. Great must be His love that He could die thus daily in a thousand
places: so great His love that he could give up His own body to daily
death, and suffer the holy flame that was in the embers He illumined to
be lighted and revered and then scattered to the four quarters of the
world.
Bride could bear no longer the mystery of this great love. It moved her
to an ecstasy. What tenderness of divine love that could thus redeem the
world daily: what long-suffering for all the evil and cruelty done
hourly upon the weeping earth: what patience with the bitterness of the
blind fates! The beauty of the worship of Be'al was upon her as a golden
glory. Her heart leaped to a song that could not be sung.
Bowing her head, so that the tears fell upon her hands, she rose and
moved away.
Elsewhere I have told how a good man of Iona sailed along the coast one
Sabbath afternoon with the Holy Book, and put the Word upon the seals of
Soa: and, in another tale, how a lonely man fought with a sea-woman
that was a seal; as, again, how two fishermen strove with the sea-witch
of Earraid: and, in "The Dan-nan-Ron," of a man who went mad with the
sea-madness, because of the seal-blood that was in his veins, he being a
MacOdrum of Uist, and one of the Sliochd nan Ron, the Tribe of the Seal.
And those who have read the tale, twice printed, once as "The Annir
Choille," and again as "Cathal of the Woods," will remember how, at the
end, the good hermit Molios, when near death in his sea-cave of Arran,
called the seals to come out of the wave and listen to him, so that he
might tell them the white story of Christ; and how in the moonshine,
with the flowing tide stealing from his feet to his knees, the old saint
preached the gospel of love, while the seals crouched upon the rocks,
with their brown eyes filled with glad tears: and how, before his death
at dawn, he was comforted by hearing them splashing to and fro in the
moon-dazzle, and calling one to the other, "We, too, are of the sons of
God."
What has so often been written about is a reflection of what is in the
mind: and though stories of the seals may be heard from the Rhinns of
Islay to the Seven Hunters (and I first heard that of the MacOdrums, the
seal-folk, from a Uist man), I think that it was because of what I
heard of the sea-people on Iona, when I was a child, that they have been
so much with me in remembrance.
In the short tale of the Moon-child, I told how two seals that had been
wronged by a curse which had been put upon them by Columba, forgave the
saint, and gave him a sore-won peace. I recall another (unpublished)
tale, where a seal called Domnhuil Dhu--a name of evil omen--was heard
laughing one Hallowe'en on the rocks below the ruined abbey, and calling
to the creatures of the sea that God was dead: and how the man who heard
him laughed, and was therewith stricken with paralysis, and so fell
sidelong from the rocks into the deep wave, and was afterwards found
beaten as with hammers and shredded as with sharp fangs.
But, as most characteristic, I would rather tell here the story of Black
Angus, though the longer tale of which it forms a part has been printed
before.
One night, a dark rainy night it was, with an uplift wind battering as
with the palms of savage hands the heavy clouds that hid the moon, I
went to the cottage near Spanish Port, where my friend Ivor Maclean
lived with his old deaf mother. He had reluctantly promised to tell me
the legend of Black Angus, a request he had ignored in a sullen silence
when he and Padruic Macrae and I were on the Sound that day. No tales of
the kind should be told upon the water.
When I entered, he was sitting before the flaming coal-fire; for on Iona
now, by decree of MacCailein Mor, there is no more peat burned.
"You will tell me now, Ivor?" was all I said.
"Yes; I will be telling you now. And the reason why I never told you
before was because it is not a wise or a good thing to tell ancient
stories about the sea while still on the running wave. Macrae should not
have done that thing. It may be we shall suffer for it when next we go
out with the nets. We were to go to-night; but, no, not I, no, no, for
sure, not for all the herring in the Sound."
"Is it an ancient _sgeul_, Ivor?"
"Ay. I am not for knowing the age of these things. It may be as old as
the days of the Feinn, for all I know. It has come down to us. Alasdair
MacAlasdair of Tiree, him that used to boast of having all the stories
of Colum and Brigdhe, it was he told it to the mother of my mother, and
she to me."
"What is it called?"
"Well, this and that; but there is no harm in saying it is called the
Dark Nameless One."
"The Dark Nameless One!"
"It is this way. But will you ever have heard of the MacOdrums of Uist?"
"Ay; the Sliochd-nan-ron."
"That is so. God knows. The Sliochd-nan-ron ... the progeny of the
Seal.... Well, well, no man knows what moves in the shadow of life. And
now I will be telling you that old ancient tale, as it was given to me
by the mother of my mother."
On a day of the days, Colum was walking alone by the sea-shore. The
monks were at the hoe or the spade, and some milking the kye, and some
at the fishing. They say it was on the first day of the _Faoilleach
Geamhraidh_, the day that is called _Am Fheill Brighde_, and that they
call Candlemas over yonder.
The holy man had wandered on to where the rocks are, opposite to Soa. He
was praying and praying; and it is said that whenever he prayed aloud,
the barren egg in the nest would quicken, and the blighted bud unfold,
and the butterfly break its shroud.
Of a sudden he came upon a great black seal, lying silent on the rocks,
with wicked eyes.
"My blessing upon you, O Ron," he said, with the good kind courteousness
that was his. "_Droch spadadh ort_," answered the seal, "A bad end to
you, Colum of the Gown."
"Sure now," said Colum angrily, "I am knowing by that curse that you are
no friend of Christ, but of the evil pagan faith out of the north. For
here I am known ever as Colum the White, or as Colum the Saint; and it
is only the Picts and the wanton Normen who deride me because of the
holy white robe I wear."
"Well, well," replied the seal, speaking the good Gaelic as though it
were the tongue of the deep sea, as God knows it may be for all you, I,
or the blind wind can say; "well, well, let that thing be: it's a
wave-way here or a wave-way there. But now, if it is a druid you are,
whether of fire or of Christ, be telling me where my woman is, and where
my little daughter."
At this, Colum looked at him for a long while. Then he knew.
"It is a man you were once, O Ron?"
"Maybe ay and maybe no."
"And with that thick Gaelic that you have, it will be out of the north
isles you come?"
"That is a true thing."
"Now I am for knowing at last who and what you are. You are one of the
race of Odrum the Pagan?"
"Well, I am not denying it, Colum. And what is more, I am Angus
MacOdrum, Aonghas mac Torcall mhic Odrum, and the name I am known by is
Black Angus."
"A fitting name too," said Colum the Holy, "because of the black sin in
your heart, and the black end God has in store for you."
At that Black Angus laughed.
"Why is the laughter upon you, Man-Seal?"
"Well, it is because of the good company I'll be having. But, now, give
me the word: Are you for having seen or heard of a woman called Kirsteen
M'Vurich?"
"Kirsteen--Kirsteen--that is the good name of a nun it is, and no
sea-wanton!"
"O, a name here or a name there is soft sand. And so you cannot be for
telling me where my woman is?"
"No."
"Then a stake for your belly, and nails through your hands, thirst on
your tongue, and the corbies at your eyne!"
And, with that, Black Angus louped into the green water, and the hoarse
wild laugh of him sprang into the air and fell dead upon the shore like
a wind-spent mew.
Colum went slowly back to the brethren, brooding deep. "God is good," he
said in a low voice, again and again; and each time that he spoke there
came a daisy into the grass, or a bird rose, with song to it for the
first time, wonderful and sweet to hear.
As he drew near to the House of God he met Murtagh, an old monk of the
ancient race of the isles.
"Who is Kirsteen M'Vurich, Murtagh?" he asked.
"She was a good servant of Christ, she was, in the south isles, O Colum,
till Black Angus won her to the sea."
"And when was that?"
"Nigh upon a thousand years ago."
"But can mortal sin live as long as that?"
"Ay, it endureth. Long, long ago, before Oisin sang, before Fionn,
before Cuchullin, was a glorious great prince, and in the days when the
Tuatha-de-Danann were sole lords in all green Banba, Black Angus made
the woman Kirsteen M'Vurich leave the place of prayer and go down to
the sea-shore, and there he leaped upon her and made her his prey, and
she followed him into the sea."
"And is death above her now?"
"No. She is the woman that weaves the sea-spells at the wild place out
yonder that is known as Earraid: she that is called the sea-witch."
"Then why was Black Angus for the seeking her here and the seeking her
there?"
"It is the Doom. It is Adam's first wife she is, that sea-witch over
there, where the foam is ever in the sharp fangs of the rocks."
"And who will he be?"
"His body is the body of Angus, the son of Torcall of the race of Odrum,
for all that a seal he is to the seeming; but the soul of him is Judas."
"Black Judas, Murtagh?"
"Ay, Black Judas, Colum."
But with that, Ivor Macrae rose abruptly from before the fire, saying
that he would speak no more that night. And truly enough there was a
wild, lone, desolate cry in the wind, and a slapping of the waves one
upon the other with an eerie laughing sound, and the screaming of a
seamew that was like a human thing.
So I touched the shawl of his mother, who looked up with startled eyes
and said, "God be with us"; and then I opened the door, and the salt
smell of the wrack was in my nostrils, and the great drowning blackness
of the night.
When I was a child I used to throw offerings--small coins, flowers,
shells, even a newly caught trout, once a treasured flint
arrow-head--into the sea-loch by which we lived. My Hebridean nurse had
often told me of Shony, a mysterious sea-god, and I know I spent much
time in wasted adoration: a fearful worship, not unmixed with
disappointment and some anger. Not once did I see him. I was frighted
time after time, but the sudden cry of a heron, or the snort of a
pollack chasing the mackerel, or the abrupt uplifting of a seal's head,
became over-familiar, and I desired terror, and could not find it by the
shore. Inland, after dusk, there was always the mysterious multitude of
shadow. There too, I could hear the wind leaping and growling. But by
the shore I never knew any dread, even in the darkest night. The sound
and company of the sea washed away all fears.
I was amused not long ago to hear a little girl singing, as she ran
wading through the foam of a troubled sunlit sea, as it broke on those
wonderful white sands of Iona--
"Shanny, Shanny, Shanny,
Catch my feet and tickle my toes!
And if you can, Shanny, Shanny, Shanny,
I'll go with you where no one knows!"
I have no doubt this daintier Shanny was my old friend Shony, whose more
terrifying way was to clutch boats by the keel and drown the sailors,
and make a death-necklace of their teeth. An evil Shony; for once he
netted a young girl who was swimming in a loch, and when she would not
give him her love he tied her to a rock, and to this day her long brown
hair may be seen floating in the shallow green wave at the ebb of the
tide. One need not name the place!
The Shanny song recalls to me an old Gaelic alphabet rhyme, wherein a
_Maigh-deann-M'hara_, or Mermaid, stood for M, and a Suire (also a
mermaid) stood for S; and my long perplexities as to whether I would
know a shuera from a midianmara when I saw either. It also recalls to me
that it was from a young schoolmaster priest, who had come back from
Ireland to die at home, that I first heard of the Beth-Luis-Nuin, the
Gaelic equivalent of "the A B C." Every letter in the Gaelic alphabet
is represented by a tree, and Beithe and Luis and Nuin are the Birch,
the Rowan, and the Ash. The reason why the alphabet is called the
Beth-Luis-Nuin is that B, L, N, and not A, B, C, are its first three
letters. It consists of eighteen letters--and in ancient Gaelic
seventeen, for H (the Uath, or Whitethorn) does not exist there, I
believe: and these run, B, L, N, F, S (H), D, T, C, M, G, P, R, A, O, U,
E, I--each letter represented by the name of a tree, Birch, Rowan, Ash,
etc. Properly, there is no C in Gaelic, for though the letter C is
common, it has always the sound of K.
Since this page first appeared I have had so many letters about the
Gaelic alphabet of to-day that I take the opportunity to add a few
lines. To-day as of old all the letters of the Gaelic alphabet are
called after trees, from the oak to the shrub-like elder, with the
exception of G, T, and U, which stand for Ivy, Furze and Heather. It no
longer runs B, L, N, etc., but in sequence follows the familiar and
among western peoples, universal A, B, C, etc. It is, however, short of
our Roman alphabet by eight letters J, K, Q, V, W, X, Y and Z. On the
other hand, each of these is represented, either by some other letter
having a like value or by a combination: thus K is identical with C,
which does not exist in Gaelic as a soft sound any more than it does in
Greek, but only as the C in English words such as _cat_ or _cart_, or in
combination with h as a gutteral as in _loch_--while v as common a sound
in Gaelic as the hiss of s in English exists in almost every second or
third word as _bh_ or _mh_. The Gaelic A, B, C of to-day, then, runs as
follows: Ailm, Beite, Coll, Durr, Eagh, Fearn, Gath, Huath, Togh, Luis,
Muin, Nuin, Oir, Peith, Ruis, Suil, Teine, Ur--which again is equivalent
to saying Elm, Birch, Hazel, Oak, Aspen, Alder, Ivy, Whitethorn, Yew,
Rowan or Quicken, Vine, Ash, Spindle-tree, Pine, Elder, Willow, Furze,
Heath.
The little girl who knew so much about Shanny knew nothing about her own
A B C. But I owe her a debt, since through her I came upon my good
friend "Gunainm." From her I heard first, there on Iona, on a chance
visit of a few summer days, of two of the most beautiful of the ancient
Gaelic hymns, the Fiacc Hymn and the Hymn of Broccan. My friend had
delineated them as missals, with a strangely beautiful design to each.
How often I have thought of one, illustrative of a line in the Fiacc
Hymn: "There was pagan darkness in Eire in those days: the people
adored Faerie." In the Broccan Hymn (composed by one Broccan in the time
of Lugaid, son of Loegaire, A.D. 500) is one particularly lovely line:
"Victorious Bride (Briget) loved not this vain world: here, ever, she
sat the seat of a bird on a cliff."
In a dream I dream frequently, that of being the wind, and drifting over
fragrant hedgerows and pastures, I have often, through unconscious
remembrance of that image of St. Bride sitting the seat of a bird on the
edge of the cliff that is this world, felt myself, when not lifted on
sudden warm fans of dusk, propelled as on a swift wing from the edge of
a precipice.
I would that we had these winds of dream to command. I would, now that I
am far from it, that this night at least I might pass over Iona, and
hear the sea-doves by the ruins making their sweet mournful croon of
peace, and lift, as a shadow gathering phantom flowers, the pale orchis
by the lapwing's nest.
One day, walking by a reedy lochan on the Ross of Mull, not far inland
from Fionnaphort, where is the ferry for Baile-Mor of Iona, I met an old
man who seemed in sorrow. When he spoke I was puzzled by some words
which were not native there, and then I learned that he had long lived
in Edinburgh and later in Dunfermline, and in his work had associated
with Hollanders and others of the east seas.
He had come back, in his old age, to "see the place of his two
loves"--the hamlet in Earraid, where his old mother had blessed him
"forty year back," and the little farm where Jean Cameron had kissed him
and promised to be true. He had gone away as a soldier, and news reached
them of his death; and when he came out of the Indies, and went up Leith
Walk to the great post-house in Edinburgh, it was to learn that the
Earraid cottage was empty, and that Jean was no longer Jean Cameron.
There was not a touch of bitterness in the old man's words. "It was my
name, for one thing," he said simply: "you see, there's many a 'J.
Macdonald' in the Highland regiments; and the mistake got about that
way. No, no--the dear lass wasna to blame. And I never lost her love.
When I found out where she was I went to see her once more, an' to tell
her I understood, an' loved her all the same. It was hard, in a way,
when I found she had made a loveless marriage, but human nature's human
nature, an' I could not but be proud and glad that she had nane but
puir Jamie Macdonald in her heart. I told her I would be true to her,
and since she was poor, would help her, an' wi' God's kindness true I
was, an' helped her too. For her man did an awfu' business one day, and
was sentenced for life. She had three bairns. Well, I keepit her an'
them--though I ne'er saw them but once in the year, for she had come
back to the west, her heart brast with the towns. First one bairn died,
then another. Then Jean died."
The old man resumed suddenly: "I had put all my savings into the Grand
North Bank. When that failed I had nothing, for with the little that was
got back I bought a good 'prenticeship for Jean's eldest. Since then
I've lived by odd jobs. But I'm old now, an' broke. Every day an' every
night I think o' them two, my mother an' Jean."
"She must have been a leal fine woman," I said, but in Gaelic. With a
flash he looked at me, and then said slowly, as if remembering, "_Eudail
de mhnathan an domhain_," "Treasure of all the women in the world."
I have often thought of old "Jamie Macdonald" since. How wonderful his
deep love! This man was loyal to his love in long absence, and was not
less loyal when he found that she was the wife of another; and gave up
thought of home and comfort and companionship, so that he might make
life more easy for her and the children that were not his. He had no
outer reward for this, nor looked for any.
We crossed to Baile-Mor together, and when I came upon him next day by
the Reilig Odhrain, I asked him what he thought of Iona.
He looked at the grey worn stones, "the stairway of the kings," the
tombs, the carved crosses, the grey ruins of the wind-harried cathedral,
and with a wave of his hand, said simply, "_Comunn mo ghaoil_," "'Tis a
companionship after my heart."
I do not doubt that the old man went on his way comforted by the grey
silence and grey beauty of this ancient place, and that he found in Iona
what would be near him for the rest of his days.
As a child I had some wise as well as foolish instruction concerning the
nations of Faerie. If, in common with nearly all happy children, I was
brought up in intimate, even in circumstantial, knowledge of "the
fairies"--being charitably taught, for one thing, so that I have often
left a little bowl of milk, a saucerful of oatcake and honey, and the
like, under a wooden seat, where they would be sure to see it--I was
told also of the Sidhe, often so rashly and ignorantly alluded to as the
fairies in the sense of a pretty, diminutive, harmless, natural folk;
and by my nurse Barabal instructed in some of the ways, spells,
influences, and even appearances of these powerful and mysterious clans.
I do not think, unless as a very young child, I ever confused them. I
recollect well my pleasure at a sign of gratitude. I was fond of making
little reed or bulrush or ash flutes, but once I was in a place where
these were difficult to get, and I lost the only one I had. That night I
put aside a small portion of my supper of bread and milk and honey, and
remember also the sacrifice of a gooseberry of noble proportions,
relinquished, not without a sigh, in favour of any wandering fairy lad.
Next morning when I ran out--three of us then had a wild morning
performance we called some fantastic, forgotten name, and ourselves the
Sun-dancers--I saw by the emptied saucer my little reed-flute! Here was
proof positive! I was so grateful for that fairy's gratitude, that when
dusk came again I not only left a larger supper-dole than usual, but,
decked with white fox-glove bells (in which I had unbounded faith), sat
drenched in the dew and played my little reed. Any moment (I was sure) a
small green fellow would appear, and with wild indignation I found
myself snatched from the grass, and my ears dinned now with reproaches
about the dew, now with remonstrances against "that frightfu'
reed-screeching that scared awa' the varry hens."
Ah, there are souls that know nothing of fairies, or music!
But the Sidhe are a very different people from the small clans of the
earth's delight.
However (though I could write of both a great volume), I have little to
say of either just now, except in one connection.
It is commonly said that the People of the Sidhe dwell within the hills,
or in the underworld. In some of the isles their home, now, is spoken of
as Tir-na-thonn, the Land of the Wave, or Tir-fo-Tuinn, the Land under
the Sea.
But from a friend, an Islander of Iona, I have learned many things, and
among them, that the Shee no longer dwell within the inland hills, and
that though many of them inhabit the lonelier isles of the west, and in
particular The Seven Hunters, their Kingdom is in the North.
Some say it is among the pathless mountains of Iceland. But my friend
spoke to an Iceland man, and he said he had never seen them. There were
Secret People there, but not the Gaelic Sidhe.